Long-term Risks of Recurrence After Hospital Discharge for Acute Lower Gastrointestinal Bleeding: A Large Nationwide Cohort Study

Background and Aims: Currently, large, nationwide, long-term follow-up data on acute lower gastrointestinal bleeding (ALGIB) are scarce.We investigated long-term risks of recurrence after hospital discharge for ALGIB using a large multicenter dataset. Methods:We retrospectively analyzed 5,048 patients who were urgently hospitalized for ALGIB at 49 hospitals across Japan (CODE BLUE-J study).Risk factors for the long-term recurrence of ALGIB were analyzed using competing risk analysis, treating death without rebleeding as a competing risk.Results: Rebleeding occurred in 1,304 patients (25.8%) during a mean follow-up period of 31 months.The cumulative incidences of rebleeding at 1 and 5 years were 15.1% and 25.1%, respectively.The mortality risk was significantly higher in patients with out-of-hospital rebleeding episodes than in those without (hazard ratio, 1.42).Of the 30 factors, multivariate analysis showed that shock index ≥1 (subdistribution hazard ratio [SHR], 1.25), blood transfusion (SHR, 1.26), in-hospital rebleeding (SHR, 1.26), colonic diverticular bleeding (CDB) (SHR, 2.38), and thienopyridine use (SHR, 1.24) were significantly associated with increased rebleeding risk.Multivariate analysis of CDB patients showed that blood transfusion (SHR, 1.20), in-hospital rebleeding (SHR, 1.30), and thienopyridine use (SHR, 1.32) were significantly associated with increased rebleeding risk, while endoscopic hemostasis (SHR, 0.83) significantly decreased the risk.Conclusions: These large nationwide follow-up data highlighted the importance of endoscopic diagnosis and treatment during hospitalization and the assessment of the need for ongoing thienopyridine use to reduce the risk of out-of-hospital rebleeding.This information also aids in the identification of patients at high-risk of rebleeding.